While I was working today, some of the older guys in the tool room were saying that engineering jobs are hard to come by, and in order to get a job you have to have basically a 4.0 GPA and 5 years experience, otherwise you wont be able to get in anywhere. They said I would probably be better off going for something else like a business degree or something. What do you all think?

Every company is different, yes some companies like my wifes look first at the college(these college's require all A's to get in). Duke, U of Mich, Ga Tech get put in a pile to be considered the rest get pitched.

The companies that are like this pick out the university's and the top students they want and hire you before you graduate anyway.
The average company is going to look at a lot of other things when they hire you.

If you don't believe that look at the number of people "Business MBA's" unemployed right now or very underemployed.

Majority of my friends are engineers of some are a lot smarter then others but they all have good jobs, just some jobs may be more prestigious than others but pay is pretty close some jobs more prestigious than others.

Dupont recruited my kid in college years ago and when they made the offer he said "I went to school all these years to work for that salary'?
The guy said to him look at the prestige to say you work for Dupont.
Like he told them, that won't buy a house or food.

Go for the degree you want and then you can make it work if your creative.

Edit:
While I was spilling stuff all over myself I thought of something you may be interested in.
Two extreme engineers (friends of mine)
One works for a big international company that designs chemical plants and builds, he wears more dollars in cloths everyday than I have in my whole closet and he was an all A student as you pointed out. His office is like a lawyers office, nice!

The other guy was a car guy but did manage to make it through school but can do anything with his hands and could build anything. He an engineer for a steel building company that makes steel buildings.
He wears shorts to work, his office is not as nice as my play garage and on a normal day you meet him for lunch he looks like he just got done tuning a car.
Oh, he makes $43,000 more a year than the other guy.

My point is there is a job to fit every personality and grade point average.
Both of them love their jobs and thats whats most important!

thanks barry, that makes me feel better about my situation, especially the part about the car guy, because i can relate myself to being good with my hands, yet i probably have to study a little harder than the kind of people that are more "book smart" inclined

You can have all the book smarts and degrees known to man kind and will never amount to a hill of beans if you do not know how to work or how to be at work on time, ready to work every day, or can not get along with all kinds of people from all kinds of back grounds. There are a lot more traits that good employees have, but none generally are not taught in the class rooms of higher learning, mainly because most of the instructors/teachers do not know them very well. You need to observe the people you know that are good in their career field and study what, when, and why they are successful. Work on these things while you are getting that degree in you chosen career path and you will be a great applicant for the job of your choice.

This may be of interest to you, I attended an association meeting today and the speaker was a business consultant.

They speak at these meetings hoping the companies that attend will hire them for $1000 an hour. No thanks.

Anyway the topic was hiring a business manager.
In short he was talking about people with MBA's and how the demand at graduation has declined as companies have learned that paying $150-200,000 a year to a valedictorian out of school does not mean he will be worth a crap to your company and he had a figure of only about 7% of the top ones hired would have success in moving up the ladder over the next 3-5 years after being hired out of school.

He kinda confirmed what trees said the average student who was hired in with the smaller firm for a lot less money had higher success rates and the exact same thing applied to lawyers.

Never thought I would hear a PHD say this but he said the average student was more aggressive and was more street wise to adapt faster to the situation at hand.

Well finally someone, or some people, are seeing that even though people have a degree or PHD, doesnt mean they are going to be better workers than the average guy. Even though I might not be really book smart, I'm glad that I am able to work on things, and understand how they operate. I think I'm the only one out of my group of friends that can work on a car, or anything for that matter.

Follow your heart. Pick the trade that you’re interested in and enjoy. As for a degree...it's nice but, not mandatory. I can out of votech school years ago with nothing but a diploma. Hard work and enjoying what I do has placed me in an equivalent position (and pay) with double E employees. I know that aggravates some others that took the time and schooling to get to that point but, it boils down to passion.

When I was in the Army, we had a soldier there that was like a computer. Ask him anything and the answer was instantaneous, but he was so clumsy and disorientated that he could not perform his daily duties. He was discharged as not fit for military duty. Book smart ~ OK. Hands-on training along with books * Great

Hey guys, do most engineers have hands on experience in the field they work in?

HAHAHA! Nope! We had and engineer at my work that had a switch installed on the water sytem to the press. Well he had no idea that the press needed that water to run and he turned the system off and started wiring it. He knew that the system needed this shut off switch, but no idea how the whole system was tied together. A degree will help open doors for you, and even if you don't have one, but are working on one or just taking classes, it will help you gain employment. It shows that you are able to not only learn, but have some discipline as well. I don't have a degree yet, but am taking classes and it has helped open doors for me. People want trainable monkeys and not lumps.

Trees hit it, I've met more book smart people that didn't have a lick of sense, couldn't work with people, and lasted a short time at the job they were hired to do. College learning does not always equal common sense. Dan

thanks all for the comments. I just wanted to see what everyone else thought. It makes me feel a lot better knowing that common sense paired with a degree (even though it may not be with honors or anything of that sort) will help me get somewhere in this life. Kind of disappointing when people try to cut you down in your pursuits, but i guess thats life.

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